Every estate agent window in North London carries the same cards: a photograph, four bullet points, a price. We took ours down in the spring of 2021 and have not put them back.

Who the window is for

It is not for buyers. Buyers have looked at the house on a phone before they walk past the office, and the ones who have not are not the ones who will proceed. The window is for sellers, and the message it sends them is that we have instructions — which is a message about us.

The price on the card also becomes a fact in the neighbourhood. It gets discussed at the school gate, and it gets remembered after it has been reduced. A number that sits in a window for eleven weeks does the seller no favours at all.

What replaced it

A single sheet of paper that says how many houses we sold last year, in which postcodes, and how long each one took. Sellers ask about it. Nobody has yet asked us to put the cards back.